"When the massacres began in 1993 we were forced to take sides, seeking protection with either the government or the rebels", says Jean-Claude Sindayihebura, who is from Burambi in Bururi province. "Sometimes families and friends found themselves divided. There was terrible poverty; it no longer felt like our own country. It was a living hell."
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In Niger, IFAD and partners achieve results against the odds
Even as the latest Sahel food crisis and renewed instability in Mali garner international headlines, IFAD-financed agricultural projects in Niger are achieving results against the odds. This may not be the Niger story that usually makes the news, but it is a compelling one nonetheless.
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Small-scale fishing communities in Mozambique struggle to eke out a living in remote areas with depleting resources. An IFAD-supported project has helped build artisanal fishers' capacity to improve their livelihoods while reducing pressure on resources, and to link with higher authorities to ensure that their concerns are voiced at the ministerial level.
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Population pressure and a changing climate are are eroding the natural asset base of poor rural people in many parts of Mali, and contributing to a situation of escalating environmental degradation, hunger and poverty. The IFAD-supported Sahelian Areas Development Fund Programme (FODESA ), implemented in the Sahel region of central Mali, is a large-scale natural resource management initiative, designed to help local populations restore damaged ecosystems and build resilience to a harsher climate.
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IFAD-supported farmer field schools use experiential learning and participatory group approaches to help farmers make decisions, solve problems and acquire new skills and techniques. Those who apply what they learn are reaping the benefits of higher yields. As farmers share their knowledge with neighbours, productivity and profits are growing. Just a few years ago, Zeyana Ali Said struggled to earn a living from her small poultry farm. Profits from her birds were small.
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For young people everywhere, finding work in today's tough economic climate is a challenge. In a poor country facing ongoing violence and natural disasters, in a rural area with few employers, it calls for extraordinary levels of creativity, initiative and persistence. Nurturing those qualities in young people is a major objective of the IFAD-supported Rural Microenterprise Assets Programme in Colombia.
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Sowing the seeds of change in central Chad
The acid test of a project's success is the legacy it leaves after closure. Two years after the end of the IFAD-supported Food Security Project in the Northern Guéra Region – Phase II (PSANG II), the benefits brought by the project continue to multiply. Offering a broad package of interventions, from building schools and wells to setting up credit systems, the project also helped boost agricultural productivity and set up microenterprises.
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Where to sell: Building strong links to markets with Moldovan farmers
"Everyone will tell you – the biggest problem is where to sell," says Vasile Biesu. He's standing between rows of neatly planted vines, heavy with perfect bunches of ripe grapes. Groups of women workers are carefully cutting the bunches and others are trimming and sorting before the grapes are put in cold storage.
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The dissolution of the Soviet Union spelled independence to millions of people in the 15 Soviet republics. But it also dealt a devastating blow to standards of living and development across the region as countries struggled to adapt to a market-oriented economy. A hard-won return to growth in the early years of this century was then cut short by the global economic crisis.
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Empowering the sheep and goat farmers of Lesotho and providing them with a more certain future Farmers in the remote mountain villages of Lesotho rely for their survival on income from the wool and mohair of their sheep and goats. Many of them travel long distances to have their animals sheared, often risking the health of their livestock and reducing the quality of the wool and mohair. The Lesotho Government's Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Programme (SANReMP), financed by IFAD, provides support through training and improved woolshed facilities to these farmers, enabling them to reduce the distances they travel and obtain higher-quality wool and mohair for sale.
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Travelling through the Lesotho countryside, one can't help but notice that severe erosion scars the landscape. Vast areas of once fertile fields have been reduced to unproductive wasteland because of poor land management over many years. Realizing that something had to be done to protect their future, the Chief and villagers of Ha Mosala in Mafeteng district have started notable efforts to reverse the effects of land degradation, with support from the Lesotho Government's Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Programme (SANReMP), financed by IFAD.
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Drought, soil erosion and HIV/AIDS have combined to have a devastating impact in Lesotho. Food security is a big problem for most of the population; families struggle to provide for themselves and many rely on food aid. In response, the Lesotho Government's Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Programme (SANReMP), supported by IFAD, has been successfully working with families in Mafeteng, Mohale's Hoek and Quthing districts to increase their livestock production and income-generating potential.
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The grass is greener: rehabilitating the Syrian Badia After years of intensive grazing and severe drought, the Syrian steppe, or Badia, has become badly degraded. An IFAD-supported project is working with local communities to regenerate and manage the rangelands for long- term productivity. Rehabilitation has restored vegetation and helped reduce herders' vulnerability to drought and the effects of climate change. The project has also created employment opportunities for women. The Syrian Arab Republic's Badia stretches across 10 million hectares of the central and north-eastern part of the country.
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Building skills, a dam, a school and a future for young people in Dhamar GovernorateThe Dhamar Participatory Rural Development Project (DPRDP) is playing an important role in development of the rural economy of Dhamar Governorate through various initiatives, including village groups, farmers’ associations, capacity-building activities, skills development programmes, credit and saving groups, natural resource management, water users’ associations and infrastructure development. These development activities generally target young people, who have few or no employment opportunities due to slow economic growth and little investment in the rural economy.
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Strengthening community resources in Al-Dhala governorateAl-Dhala is one of the poorest governorates in Yemen. It has never attracted major external assistance prior to the IFAD-financed Al-Dhala Community Resource Management Project. The governorate requires resources and technical assistance to build a strong social base – the launching pad to achieve economic self-reliance. While a recent IFAD mission was able to visit several districts to review project investments and interview participants, access to other districts was not possible in the light of the security conditions imposed by the United Nations Department of Safety and Security.
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Establishing food security by improving maize productionMany smallholder farmers, who account for most of the agricultural sector in Malawi, use rudimentary agricultural techniques, plant haphazardly and pay little attention to the quality of maize and the use of fertilizers. As a result, productivity has been extremely low and soil fertility has gradually declined. This further worsens the farmers’ situation and keeps them in a cycle of extreme poverty.
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Learning new horticultural techniques to raise incomeLobi is one of the most remote areas in Malawi. Located west of the market town of Dedza along the Mozambican border, it takes one hour travelling on a track road to reach the area. Until very recently, farmers could not grow enough to guarantee food security, but had to rely on erratic and limited harvests of vegetables and maize which often ran out before the next crop was harvested.
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Irrigation project brings water back to the fields in MalawiWater is of great concern in Malawi, particularly for agriculture. Most farmers have to rely on weather conditions and unpredictable rainfall for their crops. Irrigation is scarcely developed and the few large-scale government irrigation schemes have been neglected and fallen into disrepair. As a result, agricultural productivity is low and production erratic.
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Farmers' associations: unleashing innovation and an entrepreneurial spiritIn the Lilongwe district of Malawi, a farmers’ association has made a significant difference in the lives of the local community by providing training and enabling its members to negotiate higher prices for their crops. With his extra income, one smallholder farmer has improved his family’s situation by investing in solar power as a creative way to generate even more additional revenue.
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Learning to run a business: The Matuwa Small-scale Dairy CompanyMany smallholder farmers in Malawi rely on subsistence farming, which often does not produce enough food for them and their families. Further, these farmers have limited skills and agricultural knowledge to diversify crops or supplement their income from other reliable sources. The IFAD-supported Rural Livelihood Support Programme (RLSP) is implemented in the three southern districts of Chiradzulu, Nsanje and Thyolo in 2004 to tackle these issues and help provide the adequate training small-scale farmers need to diversify crops or develop new businesses.
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From relief to recovery: conservation farming in ZimbabweThomas Machokoto surveys his farmland – three hectares of bare soil neatly dug with ditches, pits and furrows in preparation for the rains. Together with other members of a small group of local farmers, he has been digging these contour bunds and infiltration pits to capture and store rainwater. The furrows, or tied ridges, will be used to plant above the areas that become waterlogged during the rainy season. They will allow minimum soil disturbance when the time comes for planting and harvesting – and when they have been covered with some of the crop residue for mulch, they will also help regenerate the soil. Machokoto is a 40-year-old farmer with a wife and five children. He lives in the Baradzamwa ward near Zvishavane, in the central Midlands province of Zimbabwe.
Read full storyGraduating to a new life farming Egypt's desert
An innovative scheme in Egypt is creating work for the country's large number of unemployed graduates and boosting the economy by reclaiming agricultural land from the desert. After receiving a degree in agricultural engineering from Cairo University, Ahmad Abdelmunem Al-Far was unemployed, except for occasional work in a garage or as a waiter. Then he responded to an announcement offering opportunities on reclaimed land for unemployed graduates and his life was changed. Al-Far received a plot of 2.1 hectares of reclaimed land when he joined the IFADsupported West Noubaria Rural Development Project.
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Helping nomadic families prepare for a complex future in Mongolia Mongolia's punishing climate and short growing season limit the variety in people's diets and require families to work hard during the brief summer. An IFAD-supported programme has introduced herders to sustainable land management practices and has helped people grow vegetables during the summer, providing both nutrients and an opportunity to earn by selling the surplus. The programme has also established mobile kindergartens, which serve as a day-care service for busy parents while giving the youngsters a head start on learning.
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Smallholders tap new markets in Guatemala by leveraging private partnershipsIn an effort to provide farmers in Guatemala's rough and rugged El Quiché region with the tools and training they need to transform their operations into viable businesses, IFAD-supported projects are leveraging private-sector partnerships and looking across value chains – from production to processing, marketing and ultimately to consumption. This support has allowed area farmers to access some of the largest markets in the world and has increased incomes by as much as 50 per cent.
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Organic and fair trade production revitalize cocoa industry in São Tome and Principe More than a decade ago, cocoa producers in Sao Tome and Principe were suffering because of falling global prices for cocoa. Many of them abandoned their cocoa plantations, while others cut down the trees to clear land for maize or other crops. Thanks to IFAD and its partners, nearly 2,200 farmers are now growing cocoa certified as organic or fair-trade for the international chocolate industry.
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In Niger, a combination of recurrent drought and widespread poverty leaves the most vulnerable people unable to cope when environmental shocks occur. Now, a new type of food bank provides poor farmers with access to cereal grains when there are seasonal or unexpected food shortages. These banks, managed exclusively by women, are improving nutrition, keeping families together and accruing interest in the form of grain in the warehouses. They have sustained many households in the Maradi area through the recent drought and food crisis, which has seen cereal production drop by nearly a third.
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From lighter loads to better business: empowering rural women in Kenya
“When women come together, they are powerful,” says Frida Wanjiru Mwai, a 45 year-old farmer, who has six children, and lives in the village of Kiuu, in the Nyeri South District of Central Province. As a girl she watched women in her village mobilize to replace traditional thatched roofs with waterproof corrugated iron. The memory of this collective effort led her to form a women’s group in 2002 to buy water storage tanks that were too expensive to purchase individually. She and her friends pooled together and bought the tanks for each member in rotation.
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From zero-grazing to zero poverty: smallholder dairy commercialization in Kenya
The fields are ploughed in preparation for the rains, which have been late in coming. In much of Kenya, and especially in dry areas such as the Western and Rift Valley Provinces, rural people’s livelihoods hang in the balance during these periods of drought. Scrawny-looking cattle and other livestock pick over the dry scrub at the roadsides in search of food. Milk production plummets along with harvests. For many livestock farmers these times are as lean as their cattle.
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Wheelbarrows, a road and a future: South Pacific islanders rediscover their power to change their lives Remote Pacific Island communities face increasing socio-economic and environmental uncertainty. The breakdown of traditional community structures has removed an important social safety net. But islanders are reasserting control of their economic and social well-being and achieving spectacular results with the help of an IFAD-supported programme.
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Organics: the key to helping Pacific agriculture conquer new markets In the Pacific Islands, farmers have traditionally used organic farming methods, but because their produce was not officially certified, they were unable to enter the US$18 billion global market. Now, with the help of new regional organic standards, a growing number of island farmers are getting a good price for their produce in international markets, improving life for themselves and their families.
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Island groups reap the benefits of a new Pacific agricultural centre
A new agricultural research centre is helping Pacific islanders fight the effects of climate change and feed their people. Its work in crop production and improving soil fertility under island conditions offers benefits not just for the Pacific region, but for island groups throughout the world.
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Leading by example: young Yemeni women teach their communities key skills Two remarkable young women born in one of the driest, poorest countries in the world are showing their families and their communities the way out of poverty. Ibtsam and Sabah live in the Dhamar Governorate of Yemen, where up to 70 per cent of the population in highland villages lives on less than two dollars a day.
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